Update: I finally got gotten rid of the valvetrain gremlins.
The story goes - I paid my machine shop guy to build the entire motor even though I had mentioned to him earlier that he could build the short block and I'll finish the long block. This way if any problems arose I could go back to him and he agreed. Well my guy decided to not answer my calls and kept some pretty wacky hours. Fast forward, broke in the motor and I could tell that the valvetrain was excessively noisy. I made sure there was no exhaust leak and there was none.
Got a old friend to come down and eyeball/verify what I saw. We went through each and every cylinder and basically had to reset the lash to the tune of 1 1/8 to 1 1/2 turns to get the correct lash. So basically what I am saying is that my machine shop guy was afraid and set the lash wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too loose.
After the lash was set the motor sounds like a dream now.
Now it's full steam ahead!!!